Families wait as Valley View vote nears

Thursday

Dec 6, 2012 at 2:00 AM

GOSHEN — Orange County legislators plan to hold a special meeting Wednesday to vote on funding the Valley View Center for Nursing Care and Rehabilitation, and they'll need 14 votes if the nursing home is to stay funded for all of 2013.

BY NATHAN BROWN

GOSHEN — Orange County legislators plan to hold a special meeting Wednesday to vote on funding the Valley View Center for Nursing Care and Rehabilitation, and they'll need 14 votes if the nursing home is to stay funded for all of 2013.

The battle over selling Valley View has raged for more than a year; the employees' union and many of the residents' families have fought it fiercely.

Orange County Executive Ed Diana has proposed cutting off funding on Feb. 1, with the expectation that lawmakers approve selling it before then.

Legislators voted 14-5 last week to fund the home through the end of 2013, which Diana vetoed. Fourteen votes are needed to override a veto.

The Legislature will meet Thursday, but members will not be voting until the special meeting next week on whether to override Diana's veto, said Minority Leader Jeff Berkman, D-Middletown.

All eight Democrats, plus one Republican, have consistently fought Diana's efforts to privatize the home. Last week, six other Republicans joined this group in voting for a full year's funding. (One Democrat was absent.) If all the legislators are there next week, five of these six will need to support the yearlong funding measure for it to pass.

The state Department of Health would need to approve selling or closing the home. The county filed a closure plan on Oct. 10, said DOH spokesman Peter Constantakes; this is still under review.

Catharine Hilliard of Monroe said she is worried that if Valley View closes or is sold, her son, James Flanagan, might end up in a private institution farther away from her, where he might not be taken care of as well as he is now.

"Jimmy is scared, he's really scared, and so is everybody else there," she said.

At 52, Flanagan is one of the younger patients at Valley View. He had a stroke four years ago, and he has a rare blood clotting disorder that has left him almost blind and unable to speak or swallow, and his motor skills are deteriorating.

Hilliard was in Valley View's short-term care facility for a few weeks early this year herself, after injuring herself at the gym.

She said it's been "a horrible year" for the residents, who have had to live with the uncertainty.

"These people know what is happening to them," she said. "Their families know what is happening to them. That's why we're fighting so hard."